Pod Save the World - Update on Jamal Khashoggi and monitoring right-wing extremism

Episode Date: November 21, 2018

First, Tommy talks with Karen Attiah, the Washington Post Global Opinions Editor who used to edit Jamal Khashoggi’s work, about Trump’s statement Tuesday about Jamal's murder that essentially absolves Saudi Arabia. Then he talks with Jared Holt from Right Wing Watch about his work monitoring right-wing extremist groups.

Welcome back to Pod Save the World. This is Tommy Vitor. Thank you all for listening on this Thanksgiving week. I hope you are with friends and family and loved ones and eating too much and watching football and doing all the fun things we get to do. I have a two-part episode today. The first is a brief conversation I had with Karen Attia. She is the Washington Post Global Opinions editor and she used to edit Jamal Khashoggi's work, who as you know is a Saudi journalist who is horrifically murdered. by the Saudi government in Istanbul when he visited the consulate there. She was Jamal's friend. She has done unbelievable work keeping his stories and name in the news and keeping the focus in Washington on what happened to him and demanding accountability. And then unfortunately today, the White House released a statement about Saudi Arabia that was one of the most grotesque, immoral things I've ever read. He essentially absolves them of any responsibility because they buy a bunch of stuff for

although he wildly exaggerates how much. I guess I shouldn't be remotely surprised that this immoral band of idiots would do something like this, but seeing it all laid out in black and white was awful and heartbreaking, and so I wanted to get a reaction from her and get a sense from her of what we all can do about it

because none of us should take this lying down. The second half of the conversation is longer. I talked with Jared Holt, who is a researcher, writer, reporter from Right Wing Watch. What he does is he monitors right-wing groups from, you know, the people in Charlottesville to far more violent, scary individuals across the country. It's really important work. It is work that, frankly, law enforcement has not done nearly well enough for the past several decades. So I'm incredibly grateful to him for talking me through how he does it, why it's important, all the different ranges of extremism in the United States, and how we can figure out how to combat the United States.

and how we can figure out how to combat them. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Karen Atia. Karen, thank you for coming on. Thanks for having me. I wanted to quickly touch base with you because you have done such an amazing job of keeping Jamalka Shogi's murder in the news and pushing for accountability. And then the White House released this statement today that was one of the more appalling things I've ever seen come out of a White House.

And I wanted to get your reaction and what you think should. happen next? Yeah. I just, I was frankly just disgusted by the White House statement, Trump's statement. And it basically, he lays out that, you know, the real problem is Iran and that partnership with Saudi Arabia means U.S. jobs. Again, he repeated the denials of the Prince and the King, that they knew anything about this. And basically just in a nutshell said that a man's death is not worth the money that Saudi Arabia gives to the United States. There are so many falsehood, so many lies, we know at this point that even, you know, the $100 or $110 billion figure as far as money coming from Saudi Arabia for arms deals is wildly exaggerated. and no mention at all of any sort of request or asked from the United States.

There are so many people in Saudi prisons that are languishing. No sort of request for any changes in Saudi Arabia's stance towards human rights. We call this a U.S. Saudi relationship, and this looks more like a U.S. servitude towards Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. And so what this does is we're at a point now where essentially Mohamed, He's in Phelman. He's only 33 years old or so. Now has a blank check should he become king. He has a blank check to basically eliminate anybody he wants, and the United States or Trump will stand by. And it's such a chilling and dangerous message to send to not only citizens of Saudi Arabia, but for those who find themselves in the crosshairs of any authoritarian government. So this is just a real, a new low, I think, for the Trump administration.

And there have been a lot of lows, but this is literally helping Saudi Arabia get away with murder and dismemberment and lying about it. It's stunningly appalling. Yeah. I mean, I think this statement would be a moral abomination if it were accurate. But you make an important point that it's a lie. The notion that we're selling them $110 billion of military equipment is, ridiculous double triple quadruple counting. It's nowhere close to that figure. The job figures Trump tries to cite 400,000, 500,000, 600,000 jobs created through these sales is made up. The Washington

Post in particular has done an incredible job fact-checking these statements repeatedly. So he's lying, right? I mean, he's lying and yet still giving them a pass, and I just can't fathom why he would do that. Right. And, you know, it's also, you know, with the argument regarding even Yemen, or countering Iran, there's been so much evidence that despite all of the U.S. support, the arming of the Saudi troops that they have not been able to counter the Houthis effectively in Yemen, I mean, and that it's only led to what is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world since World War II. And so even just on its face, you know, the facts, the arguments are just false. and not credible, but it just represents a willingness to bend over backwards in order to please the regime that frankly needs us more than we need them.

And, you know, I just hope right now the balls in Congress's court. So Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio in the past, plenty bipartisan support for more consequences on Saudi Arabia, not only for Jamal's death, because I think it's a certain level. right now it's even bigger than Jamal's murder as painful as it is. This is about imposing a strong check on Saudi Arabia's behavior under Mohammed bin Salban, who's basically the de facto ruler. And this is about the war in Yemen. This is about reformers, activists, women who are behind bars and facing torture. This is about strong consequences for kidnapping the prime minister of Lebanon and cutting off diplomatic relations with Canada over tweets. It's just time for the U.S., through Congress at this point, to say,

enough is enough. I mean, and I think, you know, I saw you tweeted out a story by Kareem Fahim, who is a great report at the Washington Post, about how several women's rights activists who have been imprisoned in Saudi jails have been tortured and administered electric shock treatment or beaten. And if Muhammad bin Salman can get away with murdering a journal, in a foreign country in such a high profile and disgraceful way, imagine what he could do, especially when given the green light by the United States, to countless other people he's

holding in various detention facilities. Absolutely. And, you know, that report is just even more shocking and unacceptable, considering the fact that Mohammed bin Salman, part of his charm offensive in the West, was basically using women and their right to drive as an indicator of, you know, modernizing or changing Saudi Arabia. But right after he lifted the driving ban on women, the regime moved to imprison numbers of women, including Mujin al-Hafoul, Azizu Yusuf.

Some of these are huge, huge figures in the women's driving movement. And so this idea that the lengths that they're willing to go to not only silence people, but to humiliate them. I mean, to dismember Jamal's body in death is another level of humiliation and shame. And this idea that women, beyond being silenced by being put in prison, are being subject to sexual harassment, it's just another level of ruthless humiliation, you know. And this is the sort of behavior that we should not be looking the other way on or tolerating.

It just makes us as the U.S. that, you know, of people bought in some MBS's reform plan look like idiots. But now we know the truth. And now we should act accordingly and do something about it. Yeah. I mean, many successive administrations have turned a blind eye to horrible Saudi behavior. This is, I believe, more brazen than almost anything we've seen before. And it is stunning to me that this administration is yet again turning away, even for an immoral group of people.

for folks listening now, is there anything you think should happen next in terms of pressure, specifically from Congress? I know you mentioned that earlier, but pressure from the U.N. or foreign countries or businesses that they can help with? I mean, I think absolutely, again, for Congress to impose not only sanctions, but I think it could be anything that could come out of Jamal's death. it would be the end of U.S. support for the Saudi and UAE-led coalition in Yemen that could save countless lives. And as far as, you know, I think for, you know, ordinary Americans, which this might be the first time, really, that they're hearing of Jamal Khashoggi or of what's happening in Saudi Arabia. You know, I'd urge them to continue to make noise to their congresspeople and to say that this is not, something that we as Americans will accept for a Washington Post journalist and for peaceful

people to be basically destroyed, right? And I think I would just say in particular, I think we're at a good moment or an opportune moment to push for the release of those reformers who've been sitting in prisons, who've been tortured, some reports of some who might have even actually died in prisons, and to keep raising the names of Lusanne Ha'u, Azizu, Youssef Esamov-Zemel, who is an economist who dared criticize Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 plans. All of these are people that are patriots to Saudi Arabia, who were only interested in guiding Saudi Arabia down a better path. So I think, you know, for Americans to read and be aware and to demand their freedom and to the war in Yemen, that would be the best way to hold Saudi Arabia accountable and to honor Jamal's legacy. and I would just urge everyone to please, you know, read and share Jamal's work at the Washington Post so much of what's happening now.

He wrote about. He foresaw, even going back and reading his pieces, it's almost eerie to me to read them. And I just want everybody to know how brave and how great of a man he was. He gave his life just to be able to write freely. So, yeah, that's what I would say. Well, Karen, thank you so much for talking me through this statement. and for your continued work keeping the story in the news. And I would know you've pinned the tweet of all of Jamal's work where people can find it if they follow you on Twitter or go to the Washington Post website.

Because as you say, they can silence him, but they cannot kill his words. They will live forever. And people can read them still. So thank you again. And I'm so sorry for what you've been through. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you.

And now here's the conversation with Jared Holt from Right Wing Watch. Jared, thank you so much for doing the show. It's a pleasure. So I reached out to you about talking because I've been reading about some of the recent right-wing terrorist attacks, and there was a lot of coverage of the websites and the social media networks they use. And so I decided to spend a few hours checking the stuff out myself. And I have to be honest, it was shocking. Like this isn't coded language.

These are straight-up neo-Nazis, and it's all sitting in public for anyone with a computer to see. So I wanted to just learn more about the work you're doing a right-wing watch, starting with like what is it? What do you guys do day to day and why did you think this was important work? So right wing watch is a team of a handful of people we have over at People for the American Way, which is a liberal institution. And our task is to focus in on right wing extremists, activists, the media apparatuses and try to suss out what's going on and what is useful for the public to know. As you mentioned, all of this stuff is sort of online for anybody with a computer to see. And if you're logging on to see this stuff, chances are at a screen somewhere else, you know, I'm looking right back through you. So, you know, a lot of what I do in particular is tracking the white nationalist movement and the so-called alt-right as it has blossomed up in America.

and that takes me to some very CD parts of the internet that make me feel like I want to take a shower some days. And I, you know, sort of analyze and try to decode what's going on there and then present the relevant bits to a general audience. How of the tone and the tactics of the individuals you monitor and the groups you monitor change since the 2016 election? I mean, they really think that Trump is talking to. to them and working on behalf of their interest, which they would argue, they would phrase it in a way to say it is a white interest. But it is a bit more sinister than that when you pull back the curtain and try to, you know, stake out different policy positions or how people would enforce these ideals of the world that they have. They often can wind up being quite

violent, as we've seen in so many attacks that have happened just in recent memory. These guys really believe that Trump is speaking to them and for them. The Trump administration has done some things since coming into office that have discouraged them. There is sort of a certain flavor of these guys that tend to believe that Trump has abandoned them, that the conservative establishment has corrupted an administration and campaign that was working explicitly towards their goals. But overall, they feel very emboldened and have been acting out in public ways that they otherwise hadn't for years prior. So digging back into sort of what you do. I mean, it seems like you drive these groups crazy and they single you out for criticism all the time.

but yet you still attend their rallies and cover them for right wing watch. I mean, there were two neo-Nazis living in Washington, D.C. until very recently, when one killed himself and another was arrested. Do you worry for your safety when you cover these rallies? I mean, do they recognize you and speak to you when you're there with them like in Philadelphia this past weekend? I wasn't recognized in Philly by anybody that attended the rally. We can talk about that later. that was a very sparsely attended rally, but I have been recognized by a lot of these people, and it can be a little awkward. But as far as safety, I'm usually not too worried while I'm at the events.

It's, you know, just have to be mindful, especially entering and exiting those events. And speaking of those DC neo-Nazi folks, I used to live not too far from them. So when that came up on my radar, I was like, oh, that explains some of the stickers. I saw in my neighborhood. But really? Yeah, I mean, it can get pretty close to home sometimes, but it's just when you're in this field of work, it's really necessary that you set up sort of different walls between your work and your personal life.

The criticism online I can handle for days. I'm not too worried about that. But it's just a matter of setting up that layer between what you're doing professionally and where you go home to and your hobbies and whatnot to try to minimize that crossover. I think the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally was an early wake-up call for a lot of people about how public and how violent some of these fascist neo-Nazi groups are. At the beginning of the rally even, I remember seeing people on Twitter saying things like ignore these losers, stop giving them coverage, the tiny fringe group, you're giving them a platform.

a lot of those tweets were quickly deleted after the rally got violent. But how do you think that mainstream media outlets should cover these groups and rallies? What's the line between exposing them for who they are and helping them grow? Right. I think a lot of it is making sure that when you're doing this reporting, you're bringing enough research and context and consequence to what you are covering. So profiles, you know, like Richard Spencer was profiled as this hipster sort of figure. And that, I don't think, is coverage that really held it to account as strictly as it needed to. In recent years, especially since Charlottesville publications have been getting better, I think.

More places have dedicated beat reporters who spend all of their time watching this stuff and trying to make sense if there is any. sense of it out of what they're seeing and try to suss out the larger implications of this. One truly vile news site that I know you spent a lot of time on or reporting on is InfoWars and Alex Jones. It took shockingly long for platforms like Twitter and Facebook to start banning InfoWars. Have you noticed since they're banned whether their content has changed or whether the organization seems weakened because they were exposed or depleted? or de-platform rather. Yeah, I think InfoWore's content, I still keep a pretty close watch on Info Wars,

even if I am not writing about it with the same frequency that I once did. And that has really ratcheted up on what people would probably think of as like traditional Info Wars content. The satanic conspiracy theory, lizard people, that sort of stuff. And it sounds ridiculous, but there is an audience of... The mockable stuff, yeah. Yeah, there's an audience of millions of people who eat it up. up like candy. And that core audience has not gone anywhere, but Alex Jones being deep platformed from various social media sites, I think took away any incentive they had, if there was any,

to moderate themselves somewhat. And it's just back to like, it's almost like watching a greatest hits compilation every day on Alex Jones's show. But since being deplatformed, they don't have that pressure to moderate because they don't. have really a significant influence on the news cycle anymore. That used to be something that people would get frustrated with about InfoWars for a long time was that a new story would happen, particularly this was bad during mass shootings or, you know, tragic world events. They would come in and use their media savvy and at the time massive social media presence to really shift how it's being covered and to disseminate misinformation and conspiracy theories into the mix that makes getting to the truth of things a lot harder.

And they've been significantly hindered in that regard. Is it possible to monitor how they have been hurt or not hurt financially after getting booted off of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc? That's hard to determine. The best way to do that would be to see the InfoWars tax return, which we don't have. What we can look to is site traffic. We saw a spike right after Alex Jones and InfoWars lost their platforms. And it's since returned to the levels it pretty much about always was as far as web traffic. Something that I have seen, though, is the video aspect, which used to be a major component. of InfoWars has seemed to decrease a bit because they're not on YouTube and they can't use YouTube algorithms to get their information higher up into search results. They're using this weird sort of video host that is a little slow to load and isn't really a totally clean embed on the page. In those videos, you know, where an InfoWars video, you know, would do 50,000 all the way up to, you know, 300,000 views on any given topic. They're now down to usually about

less than 2,000 views per video that they're putting out. That's good. One place that a lot of these extremists have migrated to is a social media network called Gab. It's basically Twitter for Nazis. Can you talk about the origins of Gab and how it's used and by whom? Yeah, Gab started, This guy, Andrew Torba, got the idea for Gab after Twitter post-Charlottesville started purging various white supremacist figures and followers off of its platform. These figures, with nowhere real else to go,

needed a place, and Andrew Torba saw a need and made a platform. So that was really like the founding stock of Gab and has really shaped the way the website's grown. I think Torba maybe hoped to be able to grow gab beyond that. But the fact is he, because of the nature of the platform and who's on it, he needs the extremist on the platform to remain soluble. So, you know, it's a very popular hangout spot. We saw the shooter at the Pittsburgh synagogue was a active gap user and interacted with a lot of white nationalist figures on the site. You know, it's become this real

breeding ground for extremism. And like those DC Nazis, they were on Gab. They had actually interacted with Bowers. And because Andrew Torba can't upset his core audience that this platform was essentially built to cater to, I think he gets resistance to moderate it in any meaningful way. And as a result, Gab has turned into this really sort of dangerous place. And it's, it would be a little better, like, as somebody who spends time on the site, if the site wasn't so buggy and it was easier to search, it would be easier to track what's going on in the site, but because it is so clunky between the different group pages and profiles and whatnot, a search function that sort of works and sort of doesn't, it can be really hard to keep track of some of the more

dangerous elements that are going on on the website. Do you think that the CEO is fully aware of the doxing of individuals and threats of violence that happen on there. And do we believe he supports these views or is he sticking to this fig leaf that this is a libertarian free speech zone and PC culture is garbage, blah, blah, blah. I mean, publicly, he's definitely stayed to that line that this is a radical experiment in free speech and that Gab is the platform of liberty and yada, yada, yada. But he is definitely aware of what is going on on this website. He's been criticized for it relentlessly ever since the site, you know, first emerged on the scene.

And every interview I've seen where he sits down with the journalist, somebody asks him about it. You know, besides Tucker Carlson on Fox, but that's a tangent. He's a power user, probably. Yeah, Tucker Carlson producer, power user of GAB, verified. No, but, you know, he's a power user. He's definitely aware of what's going on and seems to take the approach that it is better to do nothing and let, you know, this imaginary field of righteous debate defeat these ideas rather than recognize the danger, often immediate danger, that is present on the site so often. So like a sort of multi-part question here. I mean, do you think people just are going to find, if you're an extremist, if you're a neo-Nazi, are you just going to find Gab because that's what everybody's talking about?

Or when an incident happens, like what happened in Pittsburgh, and the mainstream media starts talking about how these people are communicating on Gab, is there a risk that that sends people that way and helps them find this kind of content? I mean, anytime you give media coverage to extremism, you hoist up their ideas. So I think, you know, like the coverage of white supremacy growing in the United States that, you know, preluded Charlottesville, I think it's important, you know, if you are going to raise the profile of a place like Gab to do so with that context and in the right frame to make sure it is crystal clear what you were talking about and what the implications of this could be. I mean, the fact is, like, people believe this stuff. And, you know, for every 4chan poster that is posting a swastika to be edgy, there's another person that is posting it because they believe it. And those people are going to find a place somewhere to be on the internet. GAV just happens to be one of the places that it has centralized. Previously, it was places like Stormfront, which is still a very, surprisingly, surprisingly,

active white supremacist forum. It would be websites like The Daily Stormer, which is a neo-Nazi blog run by a guy named Andrew England. They collectivize in different pockets as they do what so many of us online try to do and that is seek out like-minded people to interact with and be social with online. So whether it's GAV or the next thing, you know, it's almost like a game of whack-a-mole at one point. So, we're sort of talking about this range of activities, right? I mean, you mentioned 4chan, which is this, you know, sort of online message board where you find a lot of the Pepe, the frog memes and anti-Semitic content. And, you know, I think those individuals try to get away with saying they're just, you know, pushing boundaries or, you know, giving the finger to PC culture.

I mean, I disagree with that, but I think that's what they might say. But there is a big range of racism, anti-Semitism, and, and, and, you know, and, you know, and, you know, these right-wing groups in the U.S. I mean, there's the sort of pseudo-altright wannabe journalist slash grifters. There's Jason Kessler, the guy who did the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. And then there are like some even more violent murderous groups like Adam Woffin that are incredibly scary. I mean, can you talk about that range of activity that you see out there and what maybe worries you the most? Yeah. So, you know, all of this stuff exists on a spectrum. right, just like anything else, just like, you know, the Democratic Party is not entirely unified.

There's different little movements within it. This alt-right, alt-light sort of phenomena is the same way. So there is sort of a umbrella that all these groups fall into, but they are at different points along a spectrum. So you have, you know, the Mike Cernovich's of the world that are adamantly pro-Trump, has a past sort of mingling with this stuff, but has since kind of moved on, but does echo some of the rhetoric that we see further right. Then you have people like Jason Kessler, who is a organizer, who at this point has all but been humiliated to the sidelines. And they take more of a boots-on-the-ground activism-style approach, where they think the only way to grow the movement is going to be by going out in public and trying to encourage this idea of, you know, white civil rights.

Then you have people like the Richard Spencer's and Jared Taylors of the world that try to take a academic approach and logic and logic and reason their argument for white nationalism. Then, of course, I think this is the most dangerous part is the really unhinged folks. This would be like the Christopher Cantwells of the world, who is famous for breaking out in tears after Charlottesville on a live video he did, and then groups like Adamoff in Division. And, you know, although all his stuff exists on this spectrum, the messages that they're sending, you know, when they pick a collective cause, can be quite loud and powerful. In 2016, that message was elect Donald Trump for president. And since then, it's fractured a bit. You know, I think everybody after the election sort of, you know, gathered around to congratulate themselves and realized sort of who they had picked their alliances with.

And, you know, the Mike Cernovich doesn't want to be affiliated with the Adam Woffin kid who was flying swastikas and talking about murdering people and vice versa. But I think what's important to drive home is, you know, on this spectrum exists different levels of, you know, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, of course, racism. But those messages have really found themselves at the heart of power right now within the White House and this administration. and because of that, these fringier elements of this spectrum are feeling really emboldened right now to get up and act. And I think this is something that could be shut down very quickly if simply other parts of this movement would more definitively turn on these fringer elements. and in particular from the highest levels that have acknowledged antisoers conspiracy theories to the point that he gets a bomb in his mailbox or the different racist signaling towards different candidates in the 2018 midterms. I think, you know, it would be very easy to just leave these guys totally exhausted if Trump would come out and just outright condemn them or if he, you know,

wasn't doing stuff like canceling grant programs to programs that track white supremacy in the United States. It's a problem that these fringier groups can be contained, but right now in American politics and particularly in Republican politics, these guys are really feeling and sort of chattering between themselves as if they have free reign and that this is their moment in the sun. Yeah. One group that has made a lot of noise lately is called The Proud Boys. Can you talk about who the proud boys are and how that organization came to be? Yeah, depending on who you ask, the Proud Boys is either a drinking club of right-wing bros who just love the president, or it's a violent group of proto-fascists who get drunk and go into the streets and beat up people that align themselves as we could. call Antifa. This was a club started in 2016 by Gavin McKinness. He co-founded Vice Media. He doesn't work there anymore. Now he is a host at CRTV. But Gavin has a long history of sort of mingling with different figures in the white supremacist movement and white nationalist movement. He's written columns for their magazines. He's hosted them on his show at compound media.

So whenever Gavin McKinness put together this club, it kind of makes sense that some people from those circles would be attracted to it. And that's what we've seen. Most recently, as it was revealed in this law enforcement document from Washington State, apparently the FBI is talking to law enforcement, calling this group an extremist group and pointing out that it does have these tie-ins to white-nays. nationalism. But this is a group. If you see it in the headlines, it's probably because they participated in some sort of street violence, oftentimes in what's thought to be liberal epicenters of the United States like Portland or New York City. I was just in Philadelphia last weekend. And the Proud Boys situation is a bit of a mess right now. It's as this organization has

splintered off and made new chapters and stuff. Gavin McKinness has really struggled to maintain that stronghold over the organization. So you have, you know, the proud boys on the West Coast tend to be much more excited about going to events and trying to get into fights where, you know, people in the South are maybe more just about, you know, street demonstrations and that sort of thing. And it seems like, you know, every couple months you hear about some person in the proud bull. that has some sort of affiliation in the white nationalist movement. Yeah. I mean, like these guys can pretend they're not white nationalist, but they clearly are. I mean, they were on the streets in Charlottesville.

Recently, there was video of a whole bunch of proud boys beating up people and using anti-gay and racist epithets in New York City. I think they've been at a lot of these events in Portland. I mean, I've seen Gavin McGinnis talk about, you know, the sort of initiation phases, one of which involves getting in a serious fight for the movement. And so, you know, it's instructive in that, like, you've talked about this range of extremism, that someone like Gavin McGinnis, who was a co-founder of vice.

Like, this guy could be a billionaire if he wasn't such a vile racist, could go from shit posting, shit-talking, you know, PC culture hating to overtly talking about the need for violence to defend, I don't know what, like white identity or white-examines. ideals. I mean, that's why I sort of thought this was a national security themed piece of work that you're doing is because of guys like Gavin McGinnis. Yeah, I mean, and, you know, whether it's Prout Boys or whether it's Adam Woff and we've seen recently, you know, these different instances of violence trickling out of these movements is really on the increase right now. And the thought

leaders and media figures in these movements don't seem to have any real interest in curbing that. in a major way. Obviously, they all condemn Charlottesville after it happened because it was such a a PR nightmare for what they were trying to accomplish. But yeah, I definitely think that law enforcement has kind of struggled to reconcile these different groups and how they've bubbled up. That document from Washington State was actually in regard to some law enforcement officials that had been identified as, you know, part of or adjacent to the proud boys. And it seems that law enforcement is kind of trying to play catch up right now as far as we can tell from the public side of things. And, you know, especially now that the radicalization

process has moved so much online with a younger base of really tech literate people, it can be a little bit harder to track. It's not as simple as going to the meetings, going to the meetings, going to the rallies, getting some informants, it almost seems like you can't put enough eyeballs on this stuff to really keep track of it all. Yeah. I mean, to further dig into what you're just saying, I mean, the Guardian reported on Monday, I believe, that the FBI now officially considers the proud boys and extremist group with ties to white nationalism. That came in part because of a document that was released that talked about how in Vancouver, Washington, a Clark County deputy was fired for wearing a proud boys' girls sweatshirt. So I guess that's their affiliate group for women. So it's, you know, the New York Times did a big piece recently about how law enforcement agencies have been slow and recognizing the threat from these right-wing groups. It's even more disconcerting if members of law enforcement are in these right-wing groups. I mean, do you think that is an anomaly or is that part of the broader problem?

I mean, I think that's part of a problem that has existed in the movement for decades, you know, Whenever the KKK was still, you know, hot on the scene decades ago, oftentimes it would be members of local law enforcement participating and that sort of thing. And, you know, I go to these rallies and I try to talk to people on both sides. And the people that show up to oppose these groups that they, you know, say are fascist and whatnot, tend to sort of look at law enforcement as I would think probably complicit at, worst and complacent at best, either indifferent to the problem or playing some sort of role to exacerbate the problem. And it is a little telling that when you go to these rallies and you see the police lined up around the events, all the police are facing outward, which, you know, after seeing that for a while, I guess I can sort of empathize with where they might be coming from on

that. But I definitely think law enforcement could do more. And hopefully in the future we see that they do. But it does seem that law enforcement or at least the FBI in this instance has sort of recognized that there's something going on here and seems to be in the early stages of something, which is a good sign to me. And I hope that trend would continue. So you mentioned going to these rallies and the counter-fascist groups or Antifa. Can you talk just like what's the 101 on Antifa? Because you hear Republicans throw around Antifa as a boogeyman a lot. But how big do you think Antifa is?

And what do they do with these rallies that you attend? Yeah, I mean the big misconception, and I'm sure it is on purpose that Republicans give off when they talk about Antifa is that it's some sort of organized group. It's impossible for me to put numbers on it just because it's not an organization. organization. It's, you know, Antifa stands for anti-fascism, which is like a type of activism. So when you go to these things and you come across Antifa activists, oftentimes you'll find people like unions will show up, churches will show up, you know, various other faith groups will show up, and even just random people from the city. There will be chapters of like DSA sometimes, different anarchists, communist clubs will show up.

And they all sort of band together to do what they would describe as community protection, just trying to provide a barrier between this gap, like whatever gathering that they are at and the community. What the Antifa references that people will see in the news often is whenever some of these activists show up and engage in violence with the other side. And it kind of goes both ways. So what people refer to as Antifa is so frequently in the media, especially when Republicans are saying that Antifa is a terrorist organization. You know, first off, it's not an organization. Second off, it really represents a minority of the people that show up at these rallies. Oftentimes, whenever I do see people on that side engaging in violence. It's usually a very small percentage of the total group.

There's this iconic picture from the Charlottesville rally of a 23-year-old guy named Corey Long, who was essentially turned a spray can into a blowtorch. He said, because he was trying to fend off these fascists who were going after the community. And, you know, like, that is clearly a violent act directing fire at an individual, but he, argued, and I think a lot of people who have reviewed the police conduct in Charlottesville, that the police took absolutely no steps to protect people. In fact, there were guns being fired and they weren't stepping in, right? So it seems like the policing tactics leave a lot to be desired at these rallies. Right. And you couple that with such extreme speech that has such

extreme consequences, you will get extreme reactions out of people. So it's not entirely surprising to see that, you know, when somebody says something, you know, inherently fascist or racist at somebody, especially people who are directly affected, you know, some of those people will have extreme reactions to it. And they aren't always pretty. But a lot of the time, you know, it's like I was saying, the reason these different Antifa protesters show up is because they see a gap like that gentleman did between what the police are doing to protect the community and, you know, what they can do to protect the community. And oftentimes the message on that side is very much about community protection. You'll go to one of these cities and there'll be flyers

everywhere of, you know, participants, you know, people that are like fascist, racist, they'll have, they'll get flyered. So they'll have a piece of paper on a light pole and it'll have somebody's face and just sort of like a warning about it. And sometimes they'll show up with like big shields and stuff. And just trying to create a perimeter is sort of the main thing that I have personally witnessed at this stuff. Yeah. So just stepping back, like, do you think that these movements are growing? Is this problem not just sort of the shit talking on 4chan, but the really violent extremists? Are there more of them now than there were two years ago? I mean, like any extremist movement, that is fringe. It is hard to get like a hard count number on how many people are in this movement

or how many people are sympathetic, how many people talk shit online, how many people, you know, actually take it off the internet. But what we have seen is a pretty consecutive and alarming trend of hate crimes spiking in the United States. And a majority of those are right-wing hate crimes or crimes that can be attributed to extremist movements in the right wing politics. And that's not my punitry. That's FBI statistics. Right. You know, we have this growing fringe, armed, violent, like right-wing extremist wave in the United States that goes in and out.

And in 2018, they are feeling bold enough to step offline, you know, off of the podcast more often and into the streets to, you know, really target vulnerable members of communities. Last question for you. The day-to-day cesspool negativity of normal Twitter can get me down. Does this grind at you like eight hours a day of just reading the most hateful stuff from the worst people on the planet? Or how do you cope with having to do this?

I think when I first started, it would really take a toll on me. You know, I would go home to, you know, my partner. and, you know, say things like, I cannot believe, you know, I just wouldn't shut up about this stuff because it was just so shocking and would hit me in such a, like a weird direct way. But I think over the years that I have been researching this and reporting about it and, you know, in this space, I've developed almost like a clinical approach to it. The same way, you know, doctors don't get squeamish when someone who is hurt really bad comes into the emergency room. It's like I have sort of learned to approach to it. And I have sort of learned to approach. this stuff in a way where I see it and I know that there's work that I need to do here and, you know, I try to move forward from there. Yeah. Well, thank you for doing what you do. Thank you to Right Wing Watch for keeping an eye on all these individuals and movements

because it seems like nobody else was. I should give a shout out to ProPublica because they have done pretty amazing work on Adam Woffin, which is one of the truly, truly frightening groups that you mentioned earlier today. So yeah, pro-publica has been doing excellent work on this stuff. Yeah, and they can use your donations if you think their journalism is great, dear listeners. So, Jared, thanks again, man. I really appreciate it. This was fascinating.

And I'm just grateful you took the time and for the work you're doing. Well, thanks for having me. It was a real pleasure. Thank you again to Karen Atia and Jared Holt for tuning in. I'm sure for many people, this was a tough episode to listen to. These are scary subjects, you know, the fact that a country we see is an ally could do something this horrific and our government could let them get away with it, hunts me. The fact that the right-wing extremist groups that Jared monitors all day takes solace and inspiration from

the current president of the United States makes me frightened. But because of people like Karen and Jared who expose these individuals and write about them and monitor them and keep us informed, we have a better sense of what to do about it. So I'm grateful to them and all that they do. So talk to you guys next week. Thanks again for tuning in.